Teaching Strategy Resource Shelf

The Three Most Time-Efficient Teaching Practices.  As we start our semester, it is important to look at how effective and efficient we can be with our time.  Here are three suggestions from Linda Hodges (U. of Maryland, Baltimore Co.) on how to be more productive in our class preparation, while also promoting better student learning.  

A Learner-Centered Syllabus Helps Set the Tone for Learning. At its most basic level, the syllabus is used to communicate information about the course, the instructor, learning objectives, assignments, grading policies, due dates, the university’s academic integrity statement, and, in some cases, an increasingly long list of strongly worded admonitions on what is and isn’t acceptable behavior in the college classroom. Could portraying the syllabus as a contract set up a less than optimal relationship?  This article suggests some areas to think about when writing your syllabus. 

 (from Faculty Focus) Add Trauma Glasses to Your Teacher Toolkit. Faculty members have a lot of responsibilities in addition to teaching, like planning, prepping, and advising. With enough time, I’m sure that l could add a considerable number of other duties to this list. We love the job because it is rewarding and challenging, but the COVID-19 pandemic brought on new challenges, such as work from home requirements, social isolation, and trying to get through these last few academic years with our physical and mental health still intact. Well, if you thought the slew of challenges was coming to an end, think again. 

As higher education enrollment numbers decline, Covid relief funds dry up, inflation continues to rise, and labor shortages grow—pressure is building on many campuses. This sounds like an introduction to an essay about self-care or ways to avoid burnout, but it isn’t. Self-care and wellness are essential for faculty, but this is about our students, how we see them, and how to see them through trauma glasses. What are trauma glasses? Trauma glasses are a way to conceptualize how we view and interpret student behavior, and we all need to add them to our teacher toolkit. 

(from Association for Psychological Science). Parting Ways: Ending Your Course. Much emphasis has been placed on the use of activities at the beginning of a course to provide opportunities for introductions, begin to create a comfortable classroom atmosphere to encourage discussion and learning, or develop a sense of community and group identity. In many teaching books (e.g., McKeachie, 1999) there is an entire chapter devoted to getting started and what to do on the first day of a course such as breaking the ice, introducing the teacher and textbook, and allowing time for questions. Much less attention has been given to the equally important task of providing closure at the end of a course or seminar. After a great deal of time developing a sense of comfort and community in the classroom, ignoring class endings seems awkward and abrupt to both students and faculty. Use “parting-ways” techniques such as providing emotional and psychological closure, allowing an opportunity to summarize central ideas and review content, and using strategies that add to students’ entire semester-long experience and sense of accomplishment.

Mindsets Toward Learning. A mindset, first described by Carol Dweck, is a view you have of yourself as a learner, and it affects all the decisions you make about your learning-the effort you put forth, the risks you take, how you deal with failures and criticism, and how much of a challenge you are willing to accept. Mindsets can be fixed or growth. There are strategies your students can adopt to promote a growth mindset and to be a successful learner.

(From Tomorrow’s Professor). Listen to and Acknowledge Participants - Essential Abilities of Effective Presenters. Two deeply human desires are to be listened to and acknowledged. How we listen and acknowledge contributes much to the quality of our relationships, and how we as presenters listen to and acknowledge participants contributes much to the quality of their learning. As we think about participants in a learning environment, two tensions come to mind. First is their internal tension associated with not knowing or discovering that they don’t know. The second is a self-inflicted tension created when what an individual doesn’t know. What is ironic here is that for learning to take place, tension must be present. The key is not to eliminate tension; rather, it is to manage the tension by reframing it from being associated with emotional threat to being associated with cognitive challenge. When well-managed, the cognitive tension is high and the psychological tension is low. The safe learning environment is a state of relaxed alertness.

(from UIUC CITL) Assigning Course Grades. The end-of-course grades assigned by instructors are intended to convey the level of achievement of each student in the class. These grades are used by students, other faculty, university administrators, and prospective employers to make a multitude of different decisions. Unless instructors use generally-accepted policies and practices in assigning grades, these grades are apt to convey misinformation and lead the decision-maker astray. When grading policies and practices are carefully formulated and reviewed periodically, they can serve well the many purposes for which they are used.

What might a faculty member consider to establish sound grading policies and practices? The issues which contribute to making grading a controversial topic are primarily philosophical in nature. There are no research studies that can answer questions like: What should an "A" grade mean? What percent of the students in my class should receive a "C?" Should spelling and grammar be judged in assigning a grade to a paper? What should a course grade represent? These "should" questions require value judgments rather than an interpretation of research data; the answer to each will vary from instructor to instructor. But all instructors must ask similar questions and find acceptable answers to them in establishing their own grading policies. 

Final Exams: Fair or Unfair? A common complaint from students is that final exams do not always test the kinds of knowledge that is asked for in homework or quizzes or presented in lectures. Whether this perception is accurate or not, it's still an excellent starting point for talking about what you are testing when you give a final exam. The worst final exams can seem unfocused, determined to test everything, or random things. The best final exams are learning moments. If you presented a set of learning goals and objectives to your students on your syllabus, you're way ahead of the game, because that means you've thought through what is important to you for a particular class. The very simplest procedure then is to develop an exam that will demonstrate whether students have achieved these objectives.

Three Guidelines and Two Workarounds for Tackling Makeup Exam Policies. Are you one of the many instructors who loathe makeup exam requests? Makeup exams often create more work and can put us in the awkward position of judging the truthfulness of our students’ excuses. Although we can’t avoid makeup requests entirely, we can better prepare ourselves and our students by having a transparent and fair makeup exam policy. When designing your policy, always ask yourself: Does the policy allow students to learn what you want them to learn in your course? Here are three guidelines for an effective makeup exam policy and two possible workarounds

Research on Student Note-taking: Implications for Faculty and Graduate Student Instructors. Research on note-taking indicates that taking notes in class and reviewing those notes (either in class or afterward) have a positive impact on student learning.  Unfortunately, students’ notes are often inaccurate or incomplete.  What can faculty do to encourage and enable more successful note-taking.  Here is the article from the U. of Michigan teaching center. 

Alternatives to Traditional Testing.  It is too late now to change, but you should keep this in mind for next semester when you think of diverse ways of assessing student learning. For many courses of varying format and size, across many disciplines, reasonable alternatives to traditional tests (i.e., paper-based T/F or Multiple Choice) exist. In fact, oftentimes the alternatives may even be advantageous to promote student learning and be more authentic means of students demonstrating what they have learned at the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy (synthesis, analysis, evaluation).  Here are some suggestions.

(from Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center). Grading and Performance Rubrics. What are rubrics? A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly represents the performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. A rubric divides the assigned work into component parts and provides clear descriptions of the characteristics of the work associated with each component, at varying levels of mastery. Rubrics can be used for a wide array of assignments: papers, projects, oral presentations, artistic performances, group projects, etc. Rubrics can be used as scoring or grading guides, to provide formative feedback to support and guide ongoing learning efforts, or both. In the following paragraphs, we share some advantages of using rubrics and sample rubrics across different assignment types and disciplines.

“Everybody with Me?” and Other Not-so-useful Questions. “Any questions?” “Is everybody with me?” “Does this make sense?” I have asked my students these vague types of questions many times and the most common response was…silence. But how should I interpret the silence? Perhaps the students understand everything completely and therefore have no questions. Maybe they have questions but are afraid to ask them out of fear of looking stupid. Or it could mean that they are so lost they don’t even know what to ask! Only our boldest students would say; “Um, you lost me 10 minutes ago, can you repeat the whole thing again?” Another problem with vague prompts is that people, especially students, often suffer from “overconfidence bias.” The best alternative to the vague “any questions?” prompt is to use a brief Classroom Assessment Technique or CAT (Angelo and Cross, 1993). CATs do not need to be elaborate or require extensive preparation or class time. 

(from Duquesne University Center for Teaching Excellence). Fizzle or Finale: The Final Day of Class.Many courses end with a fizzle.  Frank Heppner (2007) aptly says, “In most classes, The Last Lecture was about as memorable as the rest of the class had been – that is, not very.”  The final class should bring the course to an appropriate conclusion or finale.  “For many..., the last day of class comes and goes without ceremony, yet it provides an opportunity to bring the student-teacher experience to a close in a way that students appreciate and enjoy” (Lucas and Bernstein, 2008). How can you make the final day into a finale? Some ways are: give a momento, “pass the torch,” and make emotional connections.

(from Faculty Focus). Teaching with Care: Why Community is at the Heart of Successful Pedagogy. Teaching during the pandemic meant harnessing the power of community to build a classroom in which students could succeed, because they understood that a caring attitude was at the heart of such an endeavor; this lesson carries on even as we move forward. Crafting a community is as essential as providing high-level content and goes to the heart of successful pedagogy. In fact, relationship building is a key determinant of classroom success, according to researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (Mehta, 2020). A feeling of belonging can mitigate fears and counter the isolation that can take hold of students trying to navigate college. Community is also correlated with an enhanced level of engagement (Borup, Graham, West, R.E. et al, 2020). The more instructors are willing to formulate a foundation of belonging and shared mission, the more students will be inclined to participate. Emphasizing community as a cornerstone of strong pedagogy is one of the most effective ways to deepen learning and is something that helps all members of the classroom.  

Four Ways to Spark Engaging Classroom Discussions. How can you creatively and engagingly start a classroom discussion and when should one close? When you are in the middle of a discussion, how do you know when to turn it in a different direction? Students are most engaged in learning when they’re verbally interacting with course material, the professor, and their classmates, research shows. Yet pulling off a great classroom discussion that involves all students is such a complex and challenging topic that we’ve broken it down into two course modules: one focused on planning effective classroom discussions and another focused on facilitating them. Fortunately, there are research-based techniques that are known to work. Dr. Brookfield and ACUE Director of Content Development Laurie Pendleton provide four tips to keep students focused and engaged in meaningful classroom discussions.

Thinking Creatively and Critically. The posting below gives some excellent suggestions on how to help your students think more creatively and critically. It is by Rebecca Brent and Richard M. Felder and is from Chemical Engineering Education, 48(2), 113-114 (2014).  Check out Felder's website for more articles on teaching . Two popular targets on the list of Things These Students Can't Do are creative thinking (coming up with innovative ideas) and critical thinking (making judgments or choices and backing them up with evidence and logic). Some examples are: idea generation and prioritization, explanation of unanticipated results, and problem formulation.

Cheating and plagiarism have received considerable press nationally, with many colleges and universities reporting that breaches of academic integrity are increasing every year. Unfortunately, we do not have accurate numbers as many faculty members may choose not report incidents to their departments, but what is known is there is an increase in sophisticated and premediated methods of cheating and plagiarism.  To discourage cheating, there are a number of strategies that you can implement.

If you believe the research, on any given day, something like 70 percent of our students come to class having not done the assigned reading. That phenomenon is immensely annoying to most faculty members. Who among us has not faced a classroom full of blank stares, with seemingly no one prepared to answer the well-thought-out question we've asked about the reading? How can we ensure that students are meeting what should be a very basic responsibility? You need to demonstrate that the students need to do the reading to take full advantage of class time.

Student-centered teaching methods like active and cooperative and problem-based learning make students take more responsibility for their learning than traditional teacher-centered methods do, and the students are not necessarily thrilled about it. All college instructors who have tried the former methods have experienced student resistance-and if they were getting high evaluations when they taught traditionally, their ratings may have dropped when they made the switch. Click here to learn more.

(From Faculty Focus). Back to the Basics: Revisiting the ABCs of Teaching Online Courses. The global pandemic sent higher education institutions into a whirlwind as many faculty members scrambled to make the rapid transition from traditional to online courses. However, COVID-19 revealed the creativity and resilience of our administrators, faculty, and staff. As efforts are implemented to foster a learning environment that engages all students, the challenges of digital access have been magnified, and the steep learning curve for faculty members who are new to the digital space has revealed the need for ongoing training. To equip faculty with best practices for teaching online, understanding the pedagogy of online education is foundational. The following is a summary of the fundamental things online instructors should remember to create an engaging, inclusive, and equitable learning environment for all students.

(from Inside Higher Ed) Equitable Exams During COVID-19. The equitability of online learning was called into question in March when institutions ceased classroom instruction. Educational institutions had to face the disparity of technological access needed to transition students to an online environment. Though recent data from the Pew Research Center show that 73 percent of adults have home broadband internet, the disaggregated data by household income paints a different picture. To mitigate some of the inequity, some institutions moved to pass/fail rather than letter grades, offering more flexibility to students. Now, institutions must consider equitable final exams. Even under normal circumstances, instructors must consider the purpose of an exam. Is it formative or summative? Are we testing for skill acquisition or memorization of knowledge? What is the purpose of the time limit? What is an acceptable deadline? As final exams draw near, instructors must consider how to create, administer and score final exams that are fair and equitable during this pivotal time.

(From Faculty Focus) How to Make Your Virtual Discussions Engaging, Effective, and Equitable in Eight Steps. The perfect class discussion can feel like something of an alchemy. From the instructor’s preparation to the students’ personalities, many ingredients can enable or challenge the social construction of knowledge in a class community. As Jay Howard suggests, quality discussions require a great deal of planning and an understanding of social, emotional, and intellectual dynamics (Howard 2019). In times like this, it’s urgent to consider how we can facilitate meaningful discussions in virtual environments. Challenges are understandable, but with practice there are some ways to reduce silence and uncertainty while bolstering engagement and equity in virtual discussions. If we’re open about trying new strategies, reflecting on them, and trying again, we can transform this moment into an opportunity to motivate and connect with our students. 

Build-in Self-Assessment to Develop Critical Thinking: A Case for Annotation. If we want students to be critical thinkers, we must routinely and explicitly give them structured practice opportunities to critically examine their own thinking. Squeezing two or three metacognitive activities into a hectic semester teaches students that such reflection is only for special occasions. Rather, student self-evaluation should be a daily course routine.  As an alternative to time-consuming, discrete, self-reflective assignments, we’ve turned to annotation as a built-in flexible routine to bolster any stage of the learning process. Annotation can help define grading criteria and reinforce course ideas.  

(from Faculty Focus). Ten Tips for More Efficient and Effective Grading. Many instructors dread grading, not just because grading takes up a sizable amount of time and can prove itself a tedious task, but also because instructors struggle with grading effectively and efficiently. However, effective grading does not have to take inordinate amounts of time, nor does one need to sacrifice quality for speed. The following tips can help instructors grade more effectively while enhancing student learning. 

(from Faculty Focus). Getting the Most out of Guest Experts Who Speak to Your Class. Inviting guest speakers into your classroom is a classic teaching strategy. Welcoming other voices into the classroom provides students with access to other perspectives, adds variety to the classroom routine, and demonstrates that learning is a collaborative enterprise. At the same time, however, presentations by guest experts are often plagued by a variety of design flaws that hinder their educational effectiveness. Guest experts, being unfamiliar with the mastery level of the students in the class, may speak over the heads of the students, or they may present their material at a level that is inappropriately introductory. Because they are generally unfamiliar with the class curriculum, they may repeat information that the students have already learned, or their comments may not connect in any clear way with what the students already know and what they are currently learning. 

Miscommunication between the guest expert and the host professor, furthermore, may result in the guest’s presentation running either too short or, more commonly, too long. Despite these hurdles, the increasingly collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of higher education makes the kind of partnerships represented by guest-expert arrangements more important than ever. With a little extra preparation, professors can increase the likelihood of a productive guest expert experience. 

The idea of attempting to engage students in discussion is rather frightening. There’s always the possibility that we will be met with silence. Sociologists have long contended that our behavior is guided by norms. The college classroom is no exception. You have likely noticed whichever seat a student sits in on the first day of class is where the student will sit for the entire semester. It is a normative expectation that students have about the classroom. Why can students get away with only paying civil attention; i.e., creating the appearance of paying attention? The answer is that we as faculty let them. Here are some ways to create new classroom norms.

Helping Students Read Difficult Texts. When students have problems understanding a difficult text, simply rereading the text won't help them to understand it any better. This article, from the Tomorrow's Professor mailing list, will provide reasons for your students' difficulties and strategies to assist them in comprehending these texts more easily.

Using Your Syllabus as a Learning Resource.  We know students do not take it upon themselves to read the syllabus. Yet syllabus indifference still bewilders me after teaching for 25 years, given that my syllabi are conveniently available online and in hard copy, and are replete with information virtually assuring success with my courses. Tired of asking students to “read the syllabus for that information,” a number of years ago I decided to incorporate my syllabus into each class meeting as a learning resource. Three strategies have proven quite successful.

(from UC Berkeley Center for Teaching & Learning) Reflective Teaching.  Reflecting on our teaching experiences, from the effectiveness of assignments to the opportunities for student interaction, is key to refining our courses and overall teaching practice. Reflective teaching can also help us gain closure on what may have felt like an especially long and challenging semester.

The goal of critical self-reflection is to gain an increased awareness of our teaching from different vantage points (Brookfield 1995). Collecting multiple and varied perspectives on our teaching can help inform our intuitions about teaching through an evidence-based understanding of whether students are learning effectively. Stephen Brookfield, in Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, proposes four lenses to use when examining and assessing our teaching. 

(from Cynthia Brame, Vanderbilt University – Center for Teaching). Lessons from Teaching in Fall 2020: What to Keep, What to Ditch, and What to Change. This fall, I got the opportunity to teach online for the first time. As with most times, I do something hard for the first time, I found some things that worked, some things that didn’t, and some things that I think had promise but need significant tweaking.  So what worked? (Organization) What didn’t? (Small group discussion boards) What would I tweak? (Small groups in class). And what are challenges that currently have me stumped?  Read on!

(From Stanford’s Tomorrow’s Professor) Cameras and Masks: Sustaining Emotional Connections with Your Students in an Age of COVID19 (Part 1 of 2).  This posting, the first of two parts, gives some excellent tips on how to connect effectively with your students both in-person and online. Creating an environment that enhances student learning requires up-to-date content, pedagogy based on the latest research in teaching and learning, and an emotional investment in positive student learning outcomes. Students need to feel that instructors care if they succeed, and they prefer those who demonstrate authenticity in their teaching style. In traditional classes, there are several ways instructors can show their commitment: learning students’ names, revealing personal details about themselves, listening carefully to what students have to say, and so forth. But this well-researched advice has always been premised on a model of in-person face-to-face classes, in which instructors and students are in the same room and can see each other’s full faces. Under our new conditions, what can instructors do to establish and sustain connections with students? Here are some suggestions for adapting to the new realities.

Facilitating discussions requires the ability to engage different perspectives and skills in response to the needs of the group. How well a group works together depends upon the dynamics among participants and the ability of the facilitator to gauge and respond to these dynamics. An effective facilitator works to create an inclusive learning environment while being prepared to set boundaries and rules when necessary. Yet, even experienced facilitators can be confronted with situations or individuals that prevent the group from functioning. This essay describes some reflective practices that can prepare facilitators and participants for productive group discussions.

(from Carnegie Mellon University - The Eberly Center) Creating and Using Rubrics. A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly describes the instructor’s performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. A rubric identifies: criteria - the aspects of performance (e.g., argument, evidence, clarity) that will be assessed, descriptor - the characteristics associated with each dimension (e.g., argument is demonstrable and original, evidence is diverse and compelling), and the performance levels - a rating scale that identifies students’ level of mastery within each criterion. In addition, rubrics can be used to provide feedback to students on diverse types of assignments, from papers, projects, and oral presentations to artistic performances and group projects. Rubrics provide many benefits for both the instructor and the students.

(from edutopia.org) How to Align Your LMS System with The Science of Learning. The demands of distance learning will make your Learning Management System (LMS) more important than ever this year. Have you thought about how to align your tech with the best research on how students learn? Distance learning has brought many changes to our daily practice and made many of us feel like rookie teachers all over again. One foundational tech tool that’s been a lifeline—a pillar of certainty in an ever-changing school landscape—is my trusty Learning Management System (LMS).  Like any tool we use in the profession, an LMS requires that we match rich, meaningful learning objectives with the appropriate teaching strategy—and that means we should ask ourselves if we’re grounding our choices in the best research on how students learn. So how do we leverage these research insights to use LMSs in the most effective way possible? 

(from Wiley Educational Services). 5 Faculty Best Practices Before the First Day of Online Class. For faculty who teach online, the days leading up to the first week of class are critical for both you and your students. By using this time to prepare your students for what is to come, you can help alleviate student fears and anxieties, as well as limit the number of emails you receive. For example, sending students a few introductory announcements,  and welcoming them into the classroom (e.g., through a video) can help establish a stronger student-teacher relationship. Click here for five simple actions you can take before the first day of class to help prepare yourself to teach online and to make your students feel more comfortable about the upcoming course.

If Your Syllabus Were Graded, Would It Pass? Using a Learning-Centered Approach to Design a Course Syllabus. A well-designed and thoughtful syllabus will inform the students about expectations, values, and ways to be successful. It focuses on the needs of the students and their learning processes. Read this article to learn more about how to create a learner-centered syllabus.

First-Day Questions for the Learner-Centered Classroom. Why had my evaluation scores gone down while student achievement had gone up? The reason became clear as I read the written comments. The students were displeased with the greater work. They were content to ignore reading assignments, assuming that I would lecture over the content that was important. They were content not to review information and construct knowledge except by cramming the night before exams. What I needed was a way to engage them to see that how I taught the course mattered to them; that learning this way helped them accomplish goals that were important to them. Read here for strategies to help student buy-in for more active learning.

Make the Most of the First Day of Class. The first day of class always creates some nervousness, even for seasoned instructors. It helps to have a mental checklist of objectives to accomplish so that you and your students come away with the impression that the course is off to a good start. The first class meeting should serve at least two basic purposes: 1) to clarify all reasonable questions students might have relative to the course objectives, as well as your expectations for their performance in class. As students leave the first meeting, they should believe in your competence to teach the course, be able to predict the nature of your instruction, and know what you will require of them and 2) to give you an understanding of who is taking your course and what their expectations are. Here are eight concrete objectives from these two purposes.

Research-Based Principles for Teaching and Learning.  Dr. Susan Ambrose, Director of the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence at Carnegie Mellon, is the co-author of "How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching."  She will be on our campus to present a workshop for graduate students on Feb. 22nd and the plenary talk at the Faculty Retreat on Feb. 23rd. (Registration is required).  To learn more about these teaching and learning principles, click here.

Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) for Immediate Feedback on Student Learning.  Want to get timely information about how well and what your students are learning? Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) are generally simple, non-graded, anonymous, in-class activities designed to give you and your students useful feedback on the teaching-learning process as it is happening. An additional benefit of using CATs is that they also serve as active learning strategies. The standard references on CATs is Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, 2nd edition, by Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross (Jossey-Bass, 1993). This article from Vanderbilt Center for Teaching provides several examples and how to implement CATs.

Do Quizzes Improve Student Learning? A Look at the Evidence. There’s a lot of talk these days about evidence-based instructional practices. Recently I’ve been trying to locate the evidence that supports quizzing, wondering if it merits the evidence-based label. Tracking down this evidence in our discipline-based research is challenging because although quizzing has been studied across our disciplines, it’s not easily searchable. What this evidence tells us is that given a particular set of conditions, quizzes produce positive results, in most cases a range of them. And that gives us three things to consider: quizzes are an evidence-based instructional strategy only in a general sense; to determine if quizzes produce the desired results, evidence is needed; and consideration of the instructional design is of profound importance. Additional details are here.

Ways to Assess Students’ Prior Knowledge. In order to gauge how much students have learned, it is not enough to assess their knowledge and skills at the end of the course or program. We also need to find out what they know coming in, that is, their prior knowledge, so that we can identify more specifically the knowledge and skills they have gained during the course or program and also to identify those misconceptions that can interfere with their new learning. Here are several techniques suggested by the teaching center at Carnegie Mellon.

(from Faculty Focus). Using Breakout Rooms with Less Stress and Better Results. “What are we supposed to be doing?” (said every student at least once in a breakout room). Small groupwork enables students to “compare their current understandings with those of other team members. . .construct new understandings” (Brame, 2020), builds a learning community, facilitates reflection (Brame, 2020), and mirrors the workplace (Scott, 2011). When our instruction moved online this spring, many instructors found using videoconference breakouts much less effective and efficient than in F2F (Face to Face) classes because: a) students became confused; b) the instructor could not monitor progress quickly for all groups at once; and c) group report-backs were slowed.  Here are ways to structure the group activites in the breakout rooms.

(from University of Illinois Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning). Improving Your Test Questions. Constructing exams is one of our most difficult responsibilities as reported by faculty. And it is at the same time one of our most important responsibilities. Some of the considerations when writing test items are: whether to use subjective vs. objective items, what types of objective and subjective items to use, and how to write effective, valid items. Visit CITL’s resources here to learn more about constructing test questions and to see sample test items. 

(from Faculty Focus) Extending the Shelf Life of Your Instructional Videos: Six Common Pitfalls to Avoid. When instructional video is produced thoughtfully and used to promote active engagement, it can improve student motivation, learning, and performance, make content more memorable, and bring highly visual material to life. Video has other benefits as well. It allows students to watch lectures at their own pace, rewinding and re-watching as needed. It lets instructors assign lectures as homework, opening up class time for interaction. And it can reduce the total time faculty need to spend preparing and delivering the same material for different semesters or audiences. Once you’ve recorded a video, you can–theoretically–use it again and again.

I say “theoretically” because it’s not as easy as it sounds. In fact, there are a number of small mistakes that can shorten the shelf-life of video unnecessarily, limit its reusability, and compel you to re-record sooner than you’d like. Here are six strategies that can help you avoid these pitfalls and make videos that last. 

Strategies When Writing Objective and Subjective Exams.  When deciding the structure of your exams, here are two articles to assist you when creating objective (e.g., multiple-choice or true/false tests) and subjective (e.g., essay and short-answer) exams.  

• Improving Multiple-Choice Tests
• Improving Essay Tests

Rethinking Deadline and Late Penalty Policies…Again. Recurring discussions regarding the syllabus pertain to handling excuses, extension requests, and late work, because teachers regularly deal with those issues. Suggested remedies range from giving one-time grace to assuming deception as the norm. If you have been a teacher for any length of time, you already have some sort of policy and have maybe modified it more than once. With this article, I am providing a peek at how and why I morphed from a rigid to a more flexible deadline/late penalty policy and what I observed as a result.   

Informal Early Feedback (IEF): A Valuable Opportunity for Just-in-Time Student Feedback.  Student evaluations of teaching are an important part of the feedback that instructors receive. This feedback can be especially helpful when it is collected midway in the semester. Our students can tell us if we explain clearly, are well-organized, grade fairly, and more. They may also be able to tell us if the activities we give them are well-aligned with the ways we evaluate their learning. Responding to students’ comments by discussing them in class, and making changes as appropriate, can lead to increased motivation, better learning, and possibly improved end-of-semester student ratings. Here is a description of the Informal Early Process (IEF) process and sample forms for you to adapt. If you would like assistance about the IEF from creation to implementation to interpretation, contact CITL through this form. 

(From Faculty Focus). The Benefits of Using Students as Guest Speakers. Last year I received a grant to support bringing guest scholars to my class. The idea was to find students with some expertise relevant to my courses and invite them to present in class, thereby giving the class a perspective on the material that I couldn’t provide. The grant enabled me to pay the guest scholars a stipend for their work. I had both the guest scholars and students complete questionnaires after these visits to class. 

Here’s the rationale behind the idea. The task of the teaching professor is to educate, but what does that mean? The traditional notion is that education is something done to the students by the professor. The contrary radical notion is that education is something done by students for themselves—the old comparison between the student as container and the student as plant. A middle ground, which seems closer to reality than either of these theoretical positions, is that education is something done both by the professor with the students and by the students with the professor.